Paul Murray - An Evening of Long Goodbyes

Behind me, I heard Hoyland’s pistol clatter to the floor.

‘What?’ I whispered.

‘I only came in here to get my hat,’ Pongo reflected.

‘But — but —’ spluttered Hoyland, ‘but where is she now?’

‘Gone,’ Pongo said.

‘ Gone ?’

‘She flies to Italy in half an hour,’ he said dreamily. ‘Her taxi was waiting outside.’

‘But this is incredible,’ I said, ignoring the toxic contents performing a danse macabre in my stomach. ‘You mean to tell me that — that you were in here simply minding your own business, when she burst in, and…’ I broke off; it was too hideous to contemplate.

‘Yes,’ Pongo said. ‘That’s the long and the short of it. Then she took her coat and she left.’ He took a thoughtful sip from his brandy. ‘That’s some lady,’ he said.

A low moan emerged from Hoyland. The pair of us were hunched up like old men.

‘What about us?’ he managed to croak. ‘Didn’t she say anything about us?’

Pongo considered this. ‘She said,’ he recalled at last, ‘ saluté —’ and he raised his glass to both of us.

Taking my chance meeting with Hoyland to be nothing less than a warning from the gods, I did not attempt any other agencies that day. The rain had become a deluge and by the time I got back to Bonetown I was in a foul mood. It didn’t help that from the bus stop I had to run a gauntlet of local youths, who appeared to have gone on some sort of rampage. The sky was lit up by explosions, and the streets were filled with urchins calling to each other as they hauled timber, car tyres and any other flammable business to the pyre that had materialized before the block of flats.

‘Hallowe’en,’ Droyd explained, when I pointed this out.

‘It’s weeks to Hallowe’en,’ I said sourly, taking off my scarf as, outside, a series of metallic creaks and groans was succeeded by cheers and an expensive-sounding crash. ‘They’re not going to keep this up all night, are they? I mean presumably some of them have parents, who might eventually begin to wonder —’

‘Ah yeah,’ Droyd said happily, looking down at the mayhem. ‘There’s always a bit of crack round here on Hallowe’en, am I right, Frankie?’

‘Ah yeah,’ Frank concurred lugubriously.

‘Look out, neighbourhood cats,’ Droyd said.

‘I don’t mind crack,’ I said. ‘I like crack as much as the next man. But it’s not doing a thing for my nerves, and I already have a splitting headache — I say, I don’t suppose those heroin dealers carry Anadin or paracetamol or anything like that, do they?’

‘I think they just have heroin, Charlie.’

‘Here, Frankie, remember that time the fire engine came out and we all threw rocks at them and I hit this one bollocks with a plank, remember that?’

‘Yeah.’

‘You assaulted the fire brigade?’ I said incredulously.

‘We were just tryin to have a laugh,’ Droyd’s face crossing swiftly silver then pink as a brace of rockets went up. ‘Is that too much to ask? If they’d just let us enjoy ourselves one fuckin day a year then no one’d have to get hurt, would they?’

‘A laugh,’ I repeated sardonically. ‘It looks like Bosnia out there.’ As I said it I felt a pang of homesickness for Mrs P and the cups of cocoa she made for one on rainy days like this…

‘I wonder if they’ll come out this year,’ Droyd said, rubbing his hands.

With a heavy sigh, Frank got up, went to the refrigerator, took out a six-pack of Hobson’s and left the room.

‘What’s eating him?’ I asked.

‘That bird was here,’ Droyd said disapprovingly.

‘What bird?’

‘That bird with no tits,’ he elaborated. ‘Your sister.’

‘She was? Well, damn it, why didn’t he — I say!’ I stormed out into the living room just in time to see Frank vanish into the bathroom and slide the lock shut. I went up and hammered indignantly on the door. ‘I say!’

‘Occupied,’ came the small voice from inside.

‘You didn’t tell me that Bel was here.’

‘Oh yeah,’ the voice said, with an air of cloudy recollection. ‘That’s right, she asked if you’d give her a ring.’

‘Why didn’t you tell me before? What was she doing here?’

‘Eh… I don’t know,’ the voice said meekly. ‘Just droppin off a few things I gave her a loan of for the play. Oh yeah, and she wanted to make sure I knew we were broken up.’

‘She… oh.’ I thought he’d seemed a little quiet.

‘I already had a fair idea. But it was nice of her all the same, just so I know where I stand, like.’

‘Ah,’ I said. A few moments elapsed; I stared somewhat helplessly at the flaky white paint of the door. ‘And you’re not… that is, you’re not…’

‘Me, Charlie? Ah, no. Right as rain.’ I heard the sound of a can being opened on the other side of the door, followed by a distinctive glugging. Reluctant to press him further, I stole away.

Bel came to the phone in a state of such high doh that I was sure something had happened, and when she said she was just excited because I had finally called I was downright alarmed. ‘Are you sure you’re all right?’ I said. ‘You haven’t had a blow to the head or anything?’

‘Of course not, I wanted to talk to you, that’s all. Oh Charles, something wonderful has happened, I’ve been dying to tell you —’

‘Oh?’ I had learned to be on my guard whenever Bel announced something wonderful.

‘Yes, it’s about Harry. You remember Harry, don’t you?’

‘Of course. How could I forget old Harry? Hasn’t fallen off a cliff, I hope, or been snatched away by an eagle —’

‘Don’t be silly, no, he’s —’ she took a deep breath, ‘he’s giving me the lead in his new play.’

‘Is he now? Well, well. Congratulations.’

‘I only found out last night, isn’t it amazing?’

‘Definitely,’ I said, although I wasn’t sure it merited actual paroxysms , such as were filtering down now from the other end of the line. ‘Though didn’t you have the lead in the last one too?’

‘That was different, that was an ensemble piece. This is — I mean he’s been working on it for ages, obviously, but last night we had this amazing conversation and afterwards he told me he’d just realized that he’d written it for me, like it was about me almost and he’d only just realized —’

‘Well, bravo,’ I said, trying to get in the spirit a little. ‘And what about old Mirela, is she going to be in this thing too?’

‘Oh, Mirela,’ Bel said impatiently. ‘Let’s not talk about Mirela.’

‘She is going to be in it, though?’ I persisted hopefully.

‘Yes, but that’s not the point , the point is I’m trying to tell you about this amazing conversation I had with Harry last night…’ A chain of squibs spat fractiously outside and somewhere a curtain of glass tinkled to the ground. I lowered myself to a sitting position. ‘Go on, then,’ I said reluctantly.

‘You know that last night the play finished its run — well it did, anyway, and we were having the wrap party in the theatre in town, except I didn’t really feel like being there, because it was sort of sad, you know, the end of our first play and the first thing we had done together. Anyway I said it to Harry and he said it was weird because he’d just been thinking the same thing, so he said why don’t we just leave? So we left. He knew how to get up to the theatre roof from the fire escape. It was so lovely, Charles, you could see the whole city spread out, it was so peaceful, and all these stars were out, and I just knew that something was going to happen…’